Public Reporting

Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting Program

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) Hospital Compare website publishes information on the quality of care provided to patients; this information is made available to inform consumers and to encourage healthcare facilities to make continued improvements in care quality. Data for ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) are updated annually in December and include facility-level data as well as state and national rates for each of the measures.

Hospital Compare Preview Period

Prior to each December release, data due to be displayed are made available to providers for a 30-day preview period approximately two months in advance of being made available to the public on Hospital Compare. This preview period does not serve as a review and correction period for the Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting (ASCQR) Program.

Preview reports are available via the QualityNet Secure Portal in the AutoRoute Inbox. A news story is posted on QualityNet and a ListServe is sent to subscribed users when the preview period opens.

Hospital Compare Preview Report Reference Documents

The following reference document, updated annually, is made available to assist facilities in accessing and interpreting theirAmbulatory Surgical Center (ASC)Hospital Compare preview reports:

CMS posted a public reporting training video in September of 2017. This video includes information on understanding data refresh timeframes, headers, footnotes, and much more.

Request to Withdraw

ASCs that wish to withdraw from the ASCQR Program must submit a withdrawal form that can be found on QualityNet. When a facility withdraws, data associated with that payment year will be masked on Hospital Compare with a status of “Not Available” and will remain masked until the facility begins submitting data for the subsequent payment year.

For more information on the withdrawal process, visit the How to Withdraw page.

To Submit Questions

General questions regarding the preview report or Hospital OQR Program may be submitted to the ASC Outreach and Education Support Contractor via the ASC Questions and Answers tool.